The Road to Civil War

Captain America: Civil War is just around the corner, so let us provide you with a refresher course on how we arrived to this epic war of ideologies.

THE COMICS

First off, a brief background on the source material. Civil War came about due to a superhero reality show gone awry, with the New Warriors discovering some super villain escapees of Ryker’s Island in a small town. Short story, one of the villains, Nitro, exploded which caused the death of hundreds of people including children from a nearby elementary school. With that, the US Government sought to enact the Superhero Registration Bill that would require every masked hero/vigilante to register with the government and be regulated by it, and anyone who opposes or fails to register would be regarded as a fugitive.

Ironman initially opposed the proposed bill but in the end sided with the Registration Act on the ground that the heroes must be accountable for their actions and should first be trained and certified by the government before being allowed to fight crime. Captain America, on the other hand, fought for his Constitutional right and opposed the act on the basis of protecting his identity and the safety of the people that he cares about. From here, a divide was created and the heroes took their sides, either with Ironman or with Captain America.

THE CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

While fans will always point to this scene as the start of the divide between Steve and Tony, and the start of the road to Civil War –

– but the truth is, this really was not the start.

We all know the history between Steve Rogers and the Stark family, after all it was Howard Stark’s super soldier serum that gave Steve his superhuman abilities and probably that fondue thing between Peggy and Howard had something to do with it. (kidding).

Fast forward to Tony’s abduction in the first Iron Man movie and his eventual birth of Iron Man. The moment that Nick Fury appeared in that end credits scene, we all knew that something was up. Little did we know that that something was, the Avenger Initiative.

Of course, the Avenger Initiative coursed through a total of 5 movies. In those 5 movies, our heroes, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Hulk, all caused some considerable collateral damage but was fairly tame as compared with what’s to come in the future.

With the seeds already planted, the cinematic universe continued to tease us little by little of the impending and inevitable civil war.

Going forward to the first Avengers movie, the tension between Tony and Steve was evident and it culminated in the scene featured earlier. However, the biggest factor that leads to Civil War and the Sokovia Accords (the MCU equivalent of the Superhuman Registration Act) was also occurs here which is the Battle of New York. This is the first time in the Cinematic Universe that an attack on a the Earth of that big a scale took place. However, the reception here was rather positive as evidenced by the several testimonies of the citizens of New York.

The road to Civil War was further teased in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In this movie the on-going theme was that whether or not S.H.I.E.L.D. can really be trusted. Of course, if you cannot remember the whole plot, this was the movie where HYDRA finally came out of the shadows and was revealed to have been controlling S.H.I.E.L.D. this whole time.

Throughout the Winter Soldier, the underlying theme here is that Steve Rogers started to distrust the government and started sticking to his own moral code, to which the movie played to great effect as it put the spotlight on the very shady S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury.

Things got relatively quiet throughout Phase 2 of the cinematic universe, but things picked-up once again in Avengers Age of Ultron. AoU provided for an avenue where the divide between Tony and Steve widened, with Tony creating Ultron without telling the entire team and the constant clashing of philosophies between the two, which would be best illustrated in the “wood chopping” scene.

Of course these are just seeds that caused the divide between Tony and Steve.

As for the Sokovia Accord that was mentioned earlier, and the desire by the government to control the Avengers and other superheroes, there are 3 big events that gave way to the enactment of the Superhuman Registration Act.

THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK

The clip doesn’t really do justice to how much damage was created by the Battle of New York, but take this into consideration, the total cost of damage amounted to a whopping $160 Billion! That battle alone should have triggered the enactment of the Superhuman Registration Act, but as already alluded to, the world was still enamored and on a high seeing superheroes in the flesh and being saved.

HULKBUSTER VS. HULK

Age of Ultron not only destroyed Sokovia, but it also featured that generous thrashing of an African City which may or may not be Wakanda (our money is on not Wakanda). While the whole scene provided for a lot of eye-candy for the fans, it did give us a glimpse of what would happen if one of our beloved heroes goes wild and decides to use his power for evil and cause harm. Granted The Hulk was under the control of Scarlet Witch, all the government needed was a reason to regulate our heroes, and this provided for more than the requisite reason.

SOKOVIA’S DEMISE

Probably the coup de grace for the lead author of the Superhuman Registration Act, the Battle of Sokovia caused the destruction of the nation Sokovia at the hands of Ultron and his zombie-bots. It not only was an indictment on the Avengers for the destruction that their battles cost, but also could be a ground for an international incident. With that in mind, and emotions clearly at a high, there’s really no denying that these incidents have caused the enactment of the Sokovia Accords, which would be the main sticking point between Captain America and Iron Man.

Of course, these are all educated guesses with regard to the most-anticipated showdown of this year. Only time will tell until we finally get the entire picture.

Lastly, here’s the official trailers for Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War premieres on 27 April 2016.

Gino is the Gladiators’ resident TV and comic book reviews. He is a lawyer in the making at day and full-on geek by night. He believes that the lightsaber is the best weapon during a zombie apocalypse. #AgeOfTheGeek